


Fire Squids are Friendship Squids

by OracleOcelot



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Demon True Forms, Eleanor Shellstrop is a Good Bro, Episode: s04e04 Tinker Tailor Demon Spy, Fire Squid Feels, FireSquid!Michael, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Janet is not in this because who knows where she is, Michael is a fire squid, Oneshot, Season/Series 04 Spoilers, and very concerned about upsetting his human friends, who is also very shy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 02:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21129023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OracleOcelot/pseuds/OracleOcelot
Summary: Michael('s skin suit) gets obliterated. Eleanor convinces a giant squid monster that his friends love him no matter what.





	Fire Squids are Friendship Squids

A demon’s skin suit, to put it in a human analogy, is a lot like a very complicated bra. There are lots of clasps and overlapping straps that bind the demon up until they feel kinda sexy, pretty secure, and very uncomfortable.

Taking a suit off of a demon is a process. Each one is custom-made, so it’s almost impossible to deal with all those metaphysical details without the help of the demon wearing it. That is, if you care about the well-being of the skin suit and demon inside it.

If you don’t care about that, it’s a lot easier to just blow the whole thing apart.

-

Eleanor cradled the bow tie in her shaking hands. It was covered in blood—which was just stupid because Michael would never _bleed._ Blood was on his “gross human liquids” list, even if it was at a low rank. (Michael, in an overwhelmed rant, had once ranked human saliva as “the number one weirdest and most disgusting stuff there is.")

It was also stupid that he wasn’t wearing the bow tie. Eleanor had never seen him without one. Michael collected them, _ delighted _ in them, even more than paperclips or compilation videos. That morning, when Tahani complimented him on it, Michael had proudly proclaimed that it was made of “actual Earth silk.” It’s sky blue hue was now a brownish-red.

The stupidest thing of all was that she couldn’t stop staring at it. In a distant way, Eleanor knew she had to get up off the ground. She had to lead the neighborhood, but she couldn’t peel her eyes away from stupid Michael’s stupid bow tie. She knew that if she did, she’d have to deal with the fact that her best friend was gone.

It had happened in an instant. That was the worst part. One second Michael was opening a wrapped box; the next, he’d exploded into a million fleshy pieces. Even his glasses were missing. As far as she knew, this bow tie was the only piece of him that hadn’t gotten totally obliterated.

Eleanor's surroundings slowly seeped back into her awareness. People were screaming; _ she _ was screaming. Something was on fire. 

“Okay.” Eleanor breathe. She resisted the urge to scream again; if she started, she wasn’t sure she’d ever stop. “Okay. Come on, Shellstrop. You can do this. He’ll be back. He’s not dead. He just needs a few months to recover. Just gotta keep all your shirt together until then.”

Eleanor got to her feet. Janet’s simulated residents were running across the courtyard, but there were no humans in sight. Hopefully, that meant Tahani and Jason had managed to keep their main subjects away from the action. Eleanor carefully tucked Michael’s blood-soaked bow tie into her pocket. Something moved in the distance, barely visible above the rooftops. Without further hesitation, she ran towards what everyone was running from.

Small fires turned larger as she wove through the neighborhood’s town square. The air was heavy with the smell of freshly-fried fish. Something wet coated the cobblestones in large patches. The spots were perfectly circular, and about ten feet wide. They weren’t limited to the ground: shattered tiles and loose bricks were missing from roofs and walls. They all pointed towards the edge of town.

Eleanor cut down a narrow alley that she hoped would be a shortcut. Doubt wrapped around her like a too-tight stolen H&M sweater. Why was she following this unknown, presumably Bad-Place-sent thing? What could she possibly do once she caught up to it? 

She pushed the thoughts aside. She’d deal with it, that’s what. Yell at it, at least. And if this was part of the trap the Bad Place sent to attack Michael, she needed to get as much information as possible. With Michael (temporarily, only temporarily) gone, it was up to her to keep everything running smoothly. If she fell apart now, so would everything else.

Finally, the buildings of the neighborhood dropped into open, grassy hills. Eleanor froze. Her jaw dropped. Her eyes widened.

“What in the motherforking…”

A giant, _gigantic,_ Godzilla-sized monster moved across the countryside. It crawled at an unnerving, jerky sprint. Its wet, ground-shaking tentacles left a trail behind it. Its skin glowed and shifted as if it were made entirely of lava. As it moved past a tree, the tree burst into flames. The squid monster skittered away from it before continuing its disjointed path towards the lake. Its eyes were round, massive, and a distinct, bright blue.

_ I have tentacles. There’s teeth everywhere, I’m on fire, and my neck is long. _

Eleanor knew those eyes.

She ran back into town. She came back with a megaphone and a race car.

She raced towards Michael, hating the fear that pounded through her chest. She was pretty sure she’d seen weirder shit than a gigantic flaming squid monster at this point, and it was majorly unfair to Michael to be freaked out just because he wasn’t shaped how she was used to. During the whole Bad Janet debacle, he’d been so afraid that they’d see him differently that he’d been willing to _ risk his life _to keep his true form from them.

Eleanor was determined to prove those fears wrong.

Eleanor stopped the race car, mindful of Michael’s four-story magma tentacles. She laid on the horn.

“Hey! Michael!” She yelled between blaring honks. “Where do you think you’re going, bud?”

Michael jumped, skittering back. He bumped into a boat shed, crushing it in one flailing step. The remains immediately sparked ablaze. When he jerked away from that, he shifted uncomfortably close to where Eleanor was parked but managed to stop in time. He flopped down to the ground. He glanced at Eleanor, noticed how close he was, and shrank back with a screeching gasp. He glanced at the lake, then back at the town. He slouched in on himself as much as a giant squid monster could. He slapped two tentacles over his eyes.

The fear in Eleanor’s chest melted away a little bit more. That was Michael. That was his movements, his embarrassment, his compassion. She stepped out of the car.

“Yeah, so, you were definitely exaggerating when you said six thousand feet.” She joked gently. Her tone was lost in the tinniness of the megaphone. “You’d be lucky to push past the six hundred mark.”

Michael just wrapped his tentacles tighter around himself. Eleanor frowned.

“I’m pretty sure Tahani and Jason have everything handled with the residents, so don’t worry about the experiment.”

No response. Eleanor leaned against the race car, crossing one foot over the other. Carefully casual.

“You didn’t need to run off without saying anything, you know. We’re in this together, no matter what crazy bullshirt is thrown our way. A giant fire squid is a lot easier to handle than the thought of you being gone.”

Michael shifted; one tentacle slithered to the ground.

“It’s—it’s pretty stupid, but for a second, I thought you were _actually _ dead. Everything was normal, and then your body was painting the pavement. It took a minute for my brain to catch up to everything, but seeing you like this…”

A glimmer of blue peeked out. Eleanor smiled.

“I’m just so glad you’re okay. The thought of having to do all this, deal with everything without you…” Damn it. Eleanor had planned to keep it light, and now she was getting choked up. “I don’t think it’d be possible. And I don’t just mean handling the big picture stuff. You’re my best friend, Michael.”

Eleanor stared at the smoldering grass, trying to pull herself together. When she looked back up, blue eyes stared back at her. They were wide (well, slightly wider—they were completely round) and full of familiar vulnerability. All that was missing was a pair of giant non-prescription glasses.

“Don’t give me that look, you dork,” Eleanor sniffed. She gave a watery laugh. “You’re stuck with Team Cockroach forever, whether you’re a silver fox who can_ totally get it_ or a skyscraper squid who lights stuff on fire. Now figure out a way to cool down so I can check you out up close.”

Michael slowly relaxed his limbs back to the ground. The tip of one tentacle faded to black. He dipped it in the lake behind him with a slight sizzle before bringing it back to the ground. He stayed very still, watching her.

Eleanor had to book it, but she was close enough by the time he cooled down. She blinked against the magma of his other tentacles but kept moving forward. She was already dead; it’s not like a few burns could really hurt her. (Ten-foot-wide suction cups lined with hundreds of rows of pointy teeth, on the other hand, probably could, but Michael was keeping those far away from her.) The air closer to the cooled tentacle was still just this side of too hot, but it didn’t bother her. She was from Arizona—she could handle a little heat.

Hugging him was more like leaning against a damp, almost-scalding rock wall while staring straight into a campfire, but it was the thought that counted here. Underneath his (not unpleasant) fish-and-chip scent, she swore she detected some of his usual cologne.

The wall of his limb shifted underneath her. Farther down, where it tapered off, it folded in on itself. Eleanor swallowed her instinctual fear at the fifty-foot wall moved towards her. She’d seen how fast Michael could move; right now, he was moving very slowly and being very, very careful. The tip of his tentacle stopped about twenty feet from her, but she recognized it for what it was: returning the embrace.

“See?” She stepped back so he could hear her. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll make this work. We all care about you, dude. Together, we’ll figure everything out.”

His visible eye was pinched in a translation of hope and affection. If he had a mouth, she was sure he was smiling.

She patted the wall of tentacle. “You were wrong about one thing, though.”

Michael’s eye shifted asymmetrically; the approximate of a raised eyebrow.

“Being friends with a giant flaming squid monster _is,_ actually, dope.”

-

Chidi was trying very hard to relax. He had his favorite selection of Kant's essays in his lap, a perfectly-chilled glass of strawberry lemonade in hand, and a (physically attractive—not that that mattered) friend by his side. There was just one thing wrong with the picture.

“Um,” he said.

Simone shifted to her side on her lounge chair. She gave him a pointed look over her sunglasses. “Yeah?”

“Is there a _ kraken _ in the lake?”

“Hm?” Simone calmly looked over at the giant squid monster. She turned back to her _ Neuroscience Monthly._ “Oh, yeah. That’s Mickey. He’s been around for a week or so. Eleanor says he’s here on holiday. He’s pretty friendly—you should go talk to him.”

“Talk to him?” Chidi laughed at the absurdity of it. “A giant mythical monster of the deep is taking a vacation in our neighborhood, and you’ve already had a full conversation?”

“Well yeah,” Simone grinned. “I wasn’t gonna pass up an opportunity like that. And it was more like a half-conversation. He only really talks to Eleanor. Plus Tahani Al-Jamil, but I mean, she’s Tahani Al-Jamil. Though he does hang out with Jianyu sometimes. Maybe he likes the vow of silence.” She shrugged. “Anyway. He seems nice.”

Chidi stared at her for a moment, an awed smile on his face. “You are amazing.”

“Thanks. I know.” Simone settled back into her chair. “So, are you gonna go say hi?”

Chidi looked at the kraken, then glanced back at Simone. The decision didn’t even call for a stomach ache. 

“Maybe later.” Chidi leaned back. “I’m happy where I am right now.”

Simone glanced at him with a small smile. “Me too.”

-

Eleanor paced down the dock on the far side of the lake. It was where she’d been spending most of her time lately. She took her usual spot at the edge, dangling her feet over the water.

“How’s the underwater bodybuilding going, big guy?”

The water rippled. A massive blue eye crept up from the bubbling depths. 

_ I’m almost done, but I had a bit of a setback. _ Michael mentally sighed. _ It’s the blood. I don’t have the blueprints. _

“How do you not know how to make your own blood?” Eleanor asked without any real bite. “Wasn’t that kind of coating everything?”

Michael surfaced to shoot her a look. _ It’s more complicated than that. I have to rebuild everything individually, without any interference from other human material. If I hadn’t cleaned off the blood that was coating everything, the suit would end up being just a big pile of bloody goop. _

“Wait—so you needed us to scoop up some of your blood on its own? Why didn’t you tell us that when we were getting all your pieces back together? We were already scooping up all your exploded flesh, it’s not like it would’ve made it any grosser.”

_ Eleanor, I don’t know! _ Michael whined. On the other side of the lake, a tentacle sent waves crashing to the shore. _ I didn’t want there to be yet another reason for you all to get freaked out. _

“I told you, freaking out is not a thing that’s happening,” Eleanor assured him firmly. “The only person who’s freaking out about all this is you. This is just like how you waited for days to tell us you could speak with your mind. We’re your friends, dude! If it’s part of you or it’s something that can help you, there’s nothing to be shy about.”

“I completely agree.” 

Tahani strode up the dock, her elegant sundress fluttering in the breeze. She spread out the picnic blanket with practiced grace. Jason set down the picnic basket and dug in with hungry excitement.

“We’re here for you, Michael.” Tahani declared firmly. “I understand the embarrassment that comes from not meeting dress code, but you’d be a fool to think that anything related to this form of yours will sway us from our support.”

“Yeah dawg,” Jason agreed, “Just because you’re a giant Loch Ness kaiju monster thing right now doesn’t mean you’re any less weird. We like you just the way you are.”

_ Thanks, guys._

Jason dumped a package of frozen hamburgers into the water before digging into his (cooked) own. They bobbed to the surface, thawing in the steaming water. Jason still hadn’t realized that Michael didn’t have the same appetite as the gators of Jacksonville, but they all appreciated the sentiment behind it.

Eleanor rifled through the picnic basket until she found her own lunch: tacos. “So, what do we need to fix it?”

_ I’m not sure if this is something we can fix. _ Michael bobbed with uncertainty. _ I might have to make new blood from scratch, which will take more than a few weeks. If there happened to be some kind of non-human material with blood on it, I might be able to build off of that, but I know you couldn’t leave any evidence behind— _

“Wait,” Eleanor said around a mouthful of chorizo. She quickly chewed and swallowed. “Would fabric work? Fabric with your blood on it?”

Michael paused with surprise. _ Yes. Yeah, yes! Fabric with my blood on it would work perfectly! Are you saying that you have something like that? Because if not, I’m going to be super bummed out. _

Eleanor wiped her hands on her jeans. She took something out of her back pocket; one of Michael’s patterned pocket squares. She’d taken to carrying it around with her. It was a reminder that Michael wouldn’t stay like this forever—and that he was still him if he did. She unfolded it to reveal a blood-soaked blue bow tie.

Michael gasped. _ Is that—? _

“One hundred percent Earth silk, dyed with authentic demon blood.” Eleanor finished for him. She held it up so he had a chance of seeing it. “I thought I’d hold onto it for you until you could wear it again.”

_ That—that’s perfect! Hold on, let me just—I’ve got everything else done, this’ll only take a second… _

The very tip of a tentacle rose from the waves, blocking the sun. Eleanor hung the bow tie on to one of the hooked fangs lining his giant suckers. Michael brought it down, then disappeared into the lake’s expanded depths.

The humans exchanged glances. They watched the water with tense anticipation. The waves went from crashing, to calm, to still.

“Do you think he’s alright?” Tahani asked after five minutes of quiet.

“He seemed like he knew what he was doing.” Eleanor sounded unsure even to herself. “But I don’t know.”

“He can breathe underwater, right?” Jason asked. “Because if not, this is really bad.”

“Oh for the love of—Jason, I’ve been in that lake for two weeks. Of _ course _ I can breathe underwater.”

The trio turned. Michael—human-shaped Michael—stood at the start of the dock. His white hair was perfectly coiffed, his glasses balanced precisely on the bridge of his nose. His deep blue suit complemented his clean silk tie.

“So?” Michael did a quick spin. “This is a lot better, don’t you think?”

“It’s not better or worse, darling,” Tahani said with a smile. “It’s you.”

“Oh.” Michael’s face crumpled with emotion. “Oh, you guys. I don’t know what I was so afraid of. I love you all _ so much_.”

“Come here, bud.” Eleanor moved to him, arms wide. “We love you, too. We’re going for a real hug, this time.”

Eleanor buried her face in the shoulder of Michael’s human-suit’s suit. Tahani wrapped her arms around both of them. Jason glomped on and held them all tight.

Two human arms might not have had the reach of seven giant tentacles, but for a group hug, they worked just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> The Fire Squid scene hit me right in the heart. With all these twists going on, who knows if any of this will be relevant by Thursday. I don't care--it sure was fun to write! I love Team Cockroach, tentacles and all.


End file.
